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The 411 for Everything Wikia Related
As some of you may know, Wikia has decent usability but TERRIBLE CSS. Terrible, terrible CSS. One of these days, I may drive down to SF and bang on the door of Wikia's headquarters with my encyclopedia of complaints. But for now, I'll just opt to be lazy and attempt to rewrite as much of their CSS as I can. The system can be worked (to an extent). Once the quirks have been mastered, tolerable layouts can be achieved (thank God). So, let's get started, shall we? Formatting Type Before anything else is mentioned, it is important to note that the classic editor is your friend. The general edit mode is pretty useless. For the most part, you can do all of your type formatting without ever having to touch any code. Just make sure (if you weren't already aware), that when you post logs and there's spoken private radio talk ("") to put a space between the < and the letter if it's an i. Otherwise the type will get screwed up royally. 'Links' If you want to add a link, either internal or external, simply click the chain link button in the editing toolbar. A modal with two input fields will appear, and you'll have the option of making it an internal link or external link. For an internal link, all you have to do is start typing the name of the page you want to display as a link and a dropdown menu should appear, presumably with the page you're looking for. For external links, copy and paste the link into the appropriate field and then in the field under it, type the text you want the link to display. 'Worst Case Scenarios' However, there probably will be a time, when surprise, surprise, Wikia just won't let you do what you want, regardless of how simple the task may be. So, here are a few tips concerning code. First, you'll need to be in classic editor mode. On the top right hand corner of the editing toolbar, there are two tabs, source and visual. Click the Source tab. You will see all the Wikia CSS for the page. It may look intimidating and a lot like gibberish, but if you wade through it, you should be able to find exactly where you want to do your fine tuning. *Internal links are put in double brackets ( page name ), you only have to specify the name of the wikipage. *External links can follow this syntax - Link Title *Bolded letters can be indicated in the CSS with triple dummy single quotes - ' ' 'Bold' ' ' (don't include the spaces). *Italicized letters can be indicated in the CSS with double single quotes - ' 'Italic' ' (don't include spaces here either). *If, for some reason you want your text both bolded and italicized, you can put five single quotes - ' ' ' ' 'Bold and Italic' ' ' ' ' (no spaces) For those of you who are somewhat familiar with CSS, Wikia uses inline styling . So be sure to keep in that mind when tampering with Wikia CSS. Templates Templates are helpful. They will automatically format your text (glory hallelujah). Inserting one is also easy. If you're using the general editor, click the dropdown button called 'Insert'. You should be able to select 'Template' from the list that drops down. If you're using the classic editor, scroll all the way down on the edit panel to your right. There should be a section there on Templates. I've created several (as you may have noticed) for various purposes such as sectioning and general organization. They are demonstrated below. The most frequently used templates on this wiki are probably the character infobox, the log infobox, and the log grabber. The character infobox is relatively self explanatory when it comes to filling out the fields. However, the picture part can be a little bit tricky--in order for your picture to load in the infobox, you need to upload a picture to the wiki with the exact same name as your character page. Also, do not use .pngs for the character infobox. It won't work. There also probably shouldn't be more than one picture on the wiki with same title as your character page, that will confuse Wikia and jack your picture. The log grabber and the log infobox don't need any discussion, but if you have any questions feel free to leave a message on my wall » fourteen_sword's Wiki Wall Design Tips Let's keep our wiki beautiful, yeah? I'm going to lay out some really basic rules that will help our page layouts to be easier on the eyes as well as look more consistent and organized. Tables This is a table. It's very handy for organizing information. To insert one, click on the insert drop down on the edit toolbar, 'Table' is the last option. If you click any of the cells on the table, two arrows should appear on the perpendicular sides of the cell, allowing you to either delete or add a column or row. Padding ''' All page elements should have padding. Which is, if you haven't the slighest about code, the space between adjacent elements on a page. Padding will make text wrapping smoother and increase a page's readability. It should be noted that Wikia sometimes won't allow for it. But with the templates I've created, this should be achievable. You usually can't err on the side of too much padding, either, so when in doubt, increase instead of decrease. '''Alignment All elements on a page should typically be left aligned. Center alignment can be appropriate for certain elements--such as a character quote or large headings preceding text with little to no rag . Right aligned items should be avoided as much as possible. Right aligned text should never happen. The character infobox is set to right alignment simply because Wikia can't really float items without manual code tweaking. If you want to right align a picture or other page element, that's best done if the element is positioned exactly under the character infobox and is the same width as the infobox. Pictures If you are going to have more than two pictures on your wiki page, please use the gallery feature. If you go into classic editor mode, there will be a section labeled Add features and media. The gallery feature should be the second option in, next to Photo. Colors Please to try to keep your colors somewhat unified. In other words, try not to use colors that aren't at least already somewhere on this wiki. However, if you'd like to deviate, try decreasing the saturation of whatever color you're using so as to keep the color palette of our wiki neutral and easy on the eyes. Here are a couple of sites that can help you with color picking. *Colorizer *Colour Lovers Create A Palette Finally, if you want anything in particular for your page, contact me and I will try to make it happen. Most things concerning UI aren't impossible. I will do my best to help you. Furthermore, if you have any questions, you can page me if I'm on, or leave a message on my wall. Happy Wikiaing! 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